A friend of mine posted some blah on my Facebook about not taking a binary position on sex work then said she wouldn't agree with Julie bindel on principle because of her hate speech julie fucks people up and that's a good thing. She's spot on here and about most things

One of the most shocking things I've seen recently was video footage of a street in a town in England which has become a red light zone. Not officially but it has numbers of very young girls soliciting openly on the street and using back gardens/ alleys.

The video in question was of a girl, no way was she over 16, in tears shouting at an old man as he had not paid her for performing a blow job. I can't now remember if the price was £2 and he hadn't paid or £5 and he only gave her £2.

Meanwhile on an AIBU thread another happy hooker has turned up to tell about her "fond memories" and "interesting people" she met and "lovely places " she went to whilst being "amazingly compensated"

One of the most shocking things I've seen recently was video footage of a street in a town in England which has become a red light zone

There's an official red light zone in Leeds - not too far from where I live. It operates between 9 and 7am - and it has attracted women from quite a wide area as the police turn a blind eye. Sadly, a sex worker was killed there not too long ago. But there are still women working there - and no doubt being forced to work there as well.

'Whorephobia' is a loaded word. Citing 'phobia' like this is a mechanism to diminish and ridicule for being weak minded- 'You are frightened of something for no good reason.' Feminism was never frightened of whores. It would be better to say pre fourth-wave feminism could not deal with sex work without seeking to press it into either a dark hole of exploitation and horror or onto a polished throne of choice empowerment and liberal sexuality. Women who found it a shit job they chose to do for the money, because not everybody can make that kind of money in pleasant ways, fit neither narrative. They could not be embraced by choice feminists, because their choices were self acknowledged unpleasant ones, and they could be infantilized by others in feminism as being aware of damage being done to them, but in denial or unaware of its extent.

Shallishanti not only did they try to get the event at the library cancelled they also threatened to pressure donors to cut funding, hoping it would close which 'would be a lesson' to others. A library filled with material created by people who've actually done some good in the world and run by people so welcoming they went out and offered the protesters a cuppa. Just goes to show the calibre of these activists

It won’t, not unless men get their act together, have their power taken from them and behave themselves. I mean, I would actually put them all in some kind of camp where they can all drive around in quad bikes, or bicycles, or white vans. I would give them a choice of vehicles to drive around with, give them no porn, they wouldn’t be able to fight – we would have wardens, of course! Women who want to see their sons or male loved ones would be able to go and visit, or take them out like a library book, and then bring them back.

I hope heterosexuality doesn’t survive, actually. I would like to see a truce on heterosexuality. I would like an amnesty on heterosexuality until we have sorted ourselves out. Because under patriarchy it’s shit.

And I am sick of hearing from individual women that their men are all right. Those men have been shored up by the advantages of patriarchy and they are complacent, they are not stopping other men from being shit.

I would love to see a women’s liberation that results in women turning away from men and saying: “when you come back as human beings, then we might look again.”

For this alone, I will always love Julie Bindel. It sent the right kind of people completely batshit!

I love JB. She'd probably denounce me as a breeder for marrying a man and popping out his kids but I don't care. She's got a point. My DH is lovely but by god he doesn't have a clue how privileged he actually is. And he isn't keen to help me fight the good fight for my rights, which - I won't lie - bothers me a bit.

That article on "whorephobia" was brilliant. Everything she says is just completely impossible to contest. Favourite quote: "Liberals tend also to focus on the choices available to women, rather than the choices denied them" - modern liberal politics in a nutshell.

I'm a bit sad actually, I've joined twitter and followed Bindel, Berns, Brennan and several other sheroes of mine and if they like my tweets or acknowledge my presence at all I feel genuinely starstruck. Sad sad sad.

I also like how in interviews, she's clearly very well prepared - even down to pitching her rhetoric so that it's completely palatable to the people watching - which is frustrating - had me yelling at the screen to say more, push further with the Channel4 interview, but actually very clever - it makes the extremists look all the more extreme when they say ridiculous things to such a sensible, calm, friendly sounding woman.

I've only discovered Julie Bindel in the last few years and I love her writing. She has challenged so many of my assumptions and I feel my feminism fits into the radical model now. This is a great article and it needs to be said.

Cruella I can see why you'd think that, but it's not really true. I would like him to care more but he hates politics. If you haven't experienced systemic oppression it can all just seem very abstract.

Back onto Julie Bindel - the other thing I love about her is how fearless she is and how much she unfailingly supports free speech. I used to sign those petitions banning unsavoury people from talking at events and now I realise how wrong that is. You have to allow debate, you just have to hope that there is someone there to counter the bad ideas. The left isn't interested in free speech any more and as a result its ideology is just turning into a nonsensical quasi-religious dogma.

I am so surprised that this is even controversial! The only criticism I've seen has been basically "Julie Bindel is a TERF", but still, almost every "feminist" I've seen has been disagreeing. Whereas I just think it makes total sense.